HD Heads-Up: May 24

➢ TVNZ 2 will launch superhero spoof Powerless off-peak on June 2, in a 4.10pm Saturday slot. About a company that insures people against becoming the collateral damage of superheroes, it lasted only one season and earned mixed reviews. “There’s a light, nimble humour to the show’s treatment of superpowers and heroic antics — a much needed respite from the angst and self-seriousness of so many superheroes on the small-screen, who are all so fixated on saving the world,” observed Variety. And The Hollywood Reporter said “the concept is welcome even if the pilot is flawed“. But Entertainment Weekly thought DC Comics’ first comedy series “wants to be more than a typical workplace comedy, but its own shaky premise (superhero fatigue is hilarious, but you still like superheroes even if the main characters here aren’t superheroes, right?) is its kryptonite” …

➢ TVNZ 1 will mark Queen’s Birthday Monday with the 7.30 documentary, The Real Camilla: HRH The Duchess Of Cornwall. The Telegraph said it was “only revelatory if you had literally never seen her before. It was ‘real’ in as much as the footage of Camilla it contained certainly appeared to be pictures of the Duchess of Cornwall filmed at various charity functions last year. Other than that, this 70th birthday celebration was precisely a puff piece with about as much bite as a desiccated mollusc” …

➢ As predicted, TVNZ 2 is again revising its struggling Friday night line-up. There will be yet another new look from June 8, when an 8.30 season of Make You Laugh Out Loud specials will open with a clips tribute to kids who have lit up the Internet. It will be followed by another special at 9.30, Alan Carr: Yap Yap Yap, which will overlap Three’s top-rating 7 Daysand Funny Girls. TVNZ 2 will round off the night with 10.30 re-runs of Sensing Murder …

➢ Also new in the week starting June 1 will beColombia With Simon Reeve (Prime, 7.30 Sunday) and debt collector reality vehicle Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away (Prime, 9.30 Wedneday) while ending their runs will be American Housewife, Life in Pieces, Class of Mum and Dad, Mom, Design Junkies, My Kitchen Rules,Call the Midwife and Paddington Station 24/7 …

➢ Appearing this week and next on Prime’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert are: Jason Bateman, Stephen King and Jim James (10.30 Thursday); Anne Hathaway, David Sedaris and Ahmed Bharoocha (10.30 Friday); and James Comey and Jason Aldean (12.10am Tuesday) …

Why not give Killing Eve a crack on Fridays – even at 9:30? It rated well for BBC America and deserves a bigger audience than OD. TVNZ also seems reluctant to schedule movies on Friday despite nothing else working for them (apart from when they show Harry Potter over summer, which I think was Fridays). A Disney season could do quite well in that slot with some of the classics. Phil – where do you think new episodes of The Simpsons will end up? I’m nowhere near as invested in them as I once was but I will keep watching until it goes off the air or I die, whichever comes first. Is that the end of new episodes in prime time? Perhaps they will be stripped as part of the 5pm run?

Hopefully TVNZ will broadcast Killing Eve given its US popularity. It’s ironic that BBC America commissioned the show ahead of BBC UK, where it won’t screen until their autumn. The Simpsons is the only Friday night show that is working for TVNZ 2, so I expect it will continue to air 7.30 Fridays, where it’s rating better than it did on Sunday nights.